


Touchstone

by paintstroke



Category: Generation Kill
Genre: Domestic, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Post-Canon, Romance, Short & Sweet, happiness, playful banter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:20:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27907339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paintstroke/pseuds/paintstroke
Summary: “It’s your favourite part of me.”Nate cracks his eyes open, half-asleep in the afterglow. “Nah. Close, but… no.”Brad huffs a laugh. “Oh really?” His voice is soft, edging towards a whisper.“Not my favourite,” Nate murmurs, the words thick with impending sleep. “Maybe my… fourth favourite thing.”
Relationships: Brad Colbert/Nate Fick
Comments: 8
Kudos: 76
Collections: Loose Lips Sink Ships Prompt Meme





	Touchstone

**Author's Note:**

> touchstone • \TUTCH-stohn\ • noun. 1 : a test or criterion for determining the quality or genuineness of a thing 2 : a fundamental or quintessential part or feature. 
> 
> For the Loose Lips Sink Ships Prompt (#983): Brad's dick is only Nate's fourth favourite thing about him.
> 
> My bingo card is long gone but the WIPs linger on.

  


* * *

  


“I love your dick,” Nate says, looking like he’s halfway between reality and heaven, blissed out. He seems content to not move from where he’s sprawled across the bed.

“I’m assured of that,” Brad teases with satisfied confidence. Their reunions are getting better and better. “It’s your favourite part of me.” 

Nate cracks his eyes open, still half-asleep in the afterglow. “Nah. Close, but… no.”

Brad huffs a laugh and swings his legs over the side of the bed. The tiles are cool against his bare toes. “Oh really?” His voice is soft, edging towards a whisper. 

A slow smile spreads across Nate’s face. Brad can just barely make out a hint of the green of his eyes in the light that streams through the filmy curtains of the rental. Faintly, he can hear the ocean waves pound rhythmically outside, as much of a reassurance as Nate’s body: Brad’s home.

“Not my favourite,” Nate murmurs, the words thick with impending sleep. “Maybe my… fourth favourite thing.”

“So what makes the top three?” Brad asks, bemused.

Nate’s smile widens. He’s a sphinx in his element. “Guess.”

Brad snorts and stands up, heading for the shower and leaving Nate lounging across the pale sheets. “Go to sleep, sir,” he calls back, fondly. “You’re losing touch with reality.”

Nate raises a middle finger but doesn’t lift his head to see if Brad catches sight of it. He’s out cold by the time Brad’s showered and dressed.

  


* * *

  


At first, Brad tries to put it out of his mind. It had just been an offhand comment, just Nate being facetious and half-out of it. 

Brad’s curious, but not vain enough to start listing body parts he thinks should be treasured more highly than his dick. It’s bad enough to _put up_ with compliments. Acting like he’s fishing for them would be a million times worse.

  


* * *

  


Nate’s writing again when Brad brings him a fresh cup of coffee in the morning. Nate takes the mug, smiles at him, and weaves their fingers together before kissing the back of Brad’s hand. 

Brad thinks he gets it. “My hands?” he asks, realizing that it’ll seem like it’s coming out of nowhere.

“Hmm?”

“Are my hands one of those things that you like better than my dick?”

Nate nearly chokes on his coffee. “What?”

“You said my dick was only your fourth favourite thing about me. Do my hands rank higher?”

Nate is much more awake looking than he should be for someone who was just handed a cup of coffee; the surprise waking him up more efficiently than the promise of caffeine. “I didn’t say there was an actual list…”

Brad knows an evasion when he hears one. 

“You told me to guess,” Brad points out. 

Nate runs his hands over his eyes. “I didn’t expect you to actually want a list, I just meant — I mean, what sort of person would I be if I told you your _dick_ was my favourite part of you?” He looks askance at the idea. “If that was all I wanted I’m sure I could order a perfectly serviceable dildo. A dildo that wouldn’t track sand in from the beach.” 

Brad laughed and kissed the top of Nate’s head. He can feel when the tension in Nate starts to melt away. “So my hands are on that list, aren’t they?”

Nate stares at the computer screen, nods once, and gets back to his work. 

Brad moves away, pouring his own coffee into the Lord of the Rings mug that lives at Nate’s rental and putting on some music in the other room.

  


* * *

  


That night he takes Nate apart with his hands and his hands alone.

  


* * *

  


“Like that?” he asks later when Nate’s breathing heavily against him in a room that smells like sweat and sex.

Nate makes a noise of wrung-out agreement when he realizes what Brad is getting at. He rolls to his side, tracing an absent line down Brad’s chest because he can. Brad listens as Nate tries to match his breathing. “Not just your hands on me, though. It’s…” Brad enjoys the pauses. At any other time, Nate is whip-quick with replies. There’s a special sort of vulnerability in these moments that he’d never admit to loving. “I dunno. Anything you do.”

Brad’s sure his half-smile is screaming that that’s exactly what he meant. His hands on Nate. Doing things. 

Nate buries his head in Brad’s shoulder, as if mumbling the words into Brad’s skin could possibly make them less embarrassing. “I just like watching you work with your hands.” Brad draws slow circles on Nate’s heated skin and is slightly surprised when Nate continues. “When you’re fixing things around the apartment. Working on your bike. Waxing your surfboard. Making coffee in the morning.”

“Cleaning my M4?” Brad lets himself tease. The suggestiveness of cleaning rifle barrels was lost on no one.

Nate’s silence speaks volumes.

“Getting awfully kinky, sir.” Despite his playfulness, Brad gets it. He feels the same way watching Nate. There was an attractiveness that competence held for them both, part of what had drawn them together.

Nate smacks him across the arm, and Brad grins into the darkness.

  


* * *

  


Brad’s shaving the next morning when Nate walks into the bathroom. Nate watches him for a while in the mirror. Brad tilts his head up and back, pulling the skin tight so he can shave under his chin. “Is this another of your favourites?” he asks, watching how Nate watches him in the mirror. “My neck? You got a vampire kink?” he teases as he clears the last streaks of shaving cream efficiently. 

Nate rolls his eyes, grabs his toothbrush and the toothpaste and heads for the kitchen. 

“Was that a no?” Brad calls after him. “To both? Or just the vampire thing?” 

Nate doesn’t dignify his teasing with a response.

  


* * *

  


Nate had told him to choose any movie, and Brad had thrown in Contact. Nate hadn’t seen it. Brad starts shifting restlessly. He’d forgotten about the romance subplot thrown in, all his memories were of potential aliens and the existential questions he’d wanted to see Nate respond to.

But Nate’s not watching the movie. 

Nate’s looking at him intently.

Brad holds his gaze. “Is it my eyes, sir?” He leans slightly closer but doesn’t break the intense eye contact. 

He can see that Nate doesn’t follow, Nate’s changing expressions transmit his feelings with such incredible clarity that it’s almost unfair. “Would you like to stare into my eyes all night? Is that more… rewarding… than going for my dick?” Brad twists so that he can push Nate a little further into the couch, the movie momentarily abandoned. 

Nate smirks a little. “You think that’s what I want?” 

“Right now it seems like it,” Brad raises an eyebrow. Nate hadn’t made a move, after all. “Are my eyes on the list?” 

He can see the click as Nate gets it. Nate laughs a little. “Maybe they should be.” He leans closer and kisses Brad, closing his eyes when it gets too close to focus. He licks almost sweetly across Brad’s lips but pulls away when Brad attempts to deepen the kiss. “But I wasn’t thinking like a teenage girl.”

Brad laughs a little. “I love your eyes,” he says, just to get it out of the way, slipping his leg between Nate’s, pressing a little closer. 

Nate turns away, also unable to take a compliment. “Now who’s the teenage girl?”

Brad hums. “How accurate an assessment do you want, sir? I come with a desperate need to please you and assert my worth by proving willing to degrade myself in absolutely unspeakable ways.”

Though Brad doesn’t look up, he can feel Nate rolling his eyes. 

“Dark, Brad. To think I started out this evening horny,” Nate mutters. 

Brad laughs and crowds closer, pushing Nate against the back of the couch before slipping to his knees. “I think we can get back there.”

Nate’s head hits the back of the couch heavily as he drops it back, as if unable to hold it up in the face of Brad’s intent touch.

  


* * *

  


Brad’s been bent over the kitchen table for too long. The guts of an old console system he’d found on Craigslist are spread out across the surface. He’s been patiently inspecting the electronic innards like he has some hope of identifying the flaws that kept it from turning on by sight alone. He hears a soft noise from behind him; Nate clearing his throat. 

Nate is leaning on the doorway. “Coming to bed?” he asks.

Brad looks over his shoulder. He catches Nate following his movements as he stretches. He immediately slips into a teasing grin. He flexes at Nate. “Tell me, are you an arm guy? Or shoulders?”

Nate folds his arms across his chest and raises an eyebrow. “Your intel is sadly lacking at this point in our relationship, sergeant.”

  


* * *

  


Brad comes home from the Mountain Leaders School and peels off his socks with an orgasmic noise. He peers down at his feet. Nate pads into the living room, wrinkling his nose. 

Brad looks down at his feet. They aren’t nearly as bad as Nate had seen them at times in the past. He’s been living in boots for too long though. 

Brad looks up at Nate, all seriousness. That should have been Nate’s first clue. 

“Sir, I sincerely hope you don’t have a foot fetish. If these sorry extremities are higher on your list than my dick is, I pity whatever wires got crossed in your brain.”

Nate’s too tired to do anything but laugh and shake his head. “Shower and get your ass to bed, staff sergeant.”

“So it’s my ass you want, sir?”

Nate turns on his heel and leaves.

  


* * *

  


“Welcome home,” Nate says to him, so softly that Brad almost can’t hear it over the rush of his heartbeat and the fuzzy edges that blur his reality.

“Quite a welcome,” Brad manages, glad when he can still form words. He thinks part of his brain may still be shorted out. 

Nate sprawls beside Brad and snorts. “You’d say that about a handjob after six weeks away.”

Brad smiles because that’s probably true. “Still.”

He slides his arm over until he can feel Nate at his side, solid and reassuring. 

“I’m still wondering what else is on your list,” Brad says. “Tried to make my own. Lots of long nights trying to stay warm, you know.” 

He feels the way Nate holds his breath. “Yeah?” Nate asks. “You really want to know?”

“Please.”

Nate rolls over onto his stomach and props himself up on his elbows, looking at Brad. Brad can read a warning in his expression, and he reigns in his playful side, growing serious to match. Nate lets out a slow breath as if this is a sniper shot, something he has to steady himself for. 

He touches the back of his fingers to Brad’s hands. “Your actions,” he says. Brad quirks a smile. The one he had guessed. Hands. Actions. 

Nate stretches to touch his lips. The pads of his fingers rest briefly against Brad’s lower lip. “Your words.” Brad nips teasingly at Nate’s fingertips. Nate’s expression grows fond and he pulls his hand away before Brad can try to draw it into his mouth. Brad’s only briefly distracted. 

Nate shifts closer. Nate brushes the back of his hand against Brad’s temple, caressing the side of his head. “Your thoughts.” His words have grown soft, vulnerable and open. “I love the things that make you _you_.” He shifts a leg over Brad’s thighs. “I love you.” When Nate leans down to kiss him, it’s slow and filthy and full of promise. 

Brad’s grateful that it spares him from saying anything in the moment. He puts all his effort into returning the kiss. The sentiment is almost too much, still new enough to feel uncomfortable, even if it’s also just so _right_. It’s overwhelming.

Nate seems to understand, shifting and distracting Brad. Nate’s hand caresses over his chest, slipping lower, cupping between his legs. Brad lets Nate’s lips muffle his moan. It’s entirely too soon for him to respond how he wants to. He can feel Nate’s smile spread, breaking the kiss. Nate’s grinning down at him, a wicked edge to his expression, at complete odds with the serious vulnerability of a moment ago.

“This? This is just a bonus.”

  


* * *

  



End file.
